A FURIOUS motorist has vowed not to pay a £60 parking fine she claims is the result of a row between traders.

Driver, Sandra Nuttall, of Strain Avenue, was slapped with the £60 ticket when she visited her dentist at The Dental Practice on Victoria Avenue in Blackley.

Mrs Nuttall, 50, who works at Pike Fold Primary School said she arrived for her dental appointment at around 9.45am and parked her car in one of around eighteen spaces at the right hand side of the shopping parade.

When she returned to her vehicle 45 minutes later she had been given a ticket - at 9.50am.

She said: "I just saw the sign saying customer parking and assumed it covered all the shops but it seems you can only park there if you are visiting certain shops."

She added that the black and white ticket was put on her car by one of the other traders on the parade.

She said: "It seems there is a private war going on between those shops and that I am being punished because they do not get on with one another. I was told afterwards that the owner of the fishing tackle shop gets really annoyed about people using the spaces when the other traders did not pay for it."

Trader, John Jeffrey, who owns the Hook and Line Fishing Tackle shop said the parking spaces were private property and had been paid for by himself and the neighbouring DTR Decorating Supplies at a cost of £2,500 two years ago.

Stating that there were two red signs warning people parking was for customers only, a sign at one end of the slip road and above the shop doors stating the spaces were for Hook and Line and DTR customers only he said: "Any driver with common sense and a bit of knowledge would know this was private car parking."

Mr Jeffrey, who receives a £15 fee from each ticket he issues said he had written to the owner of the dentist's premises offering to tarmac the front of his property and allow customers to share the parking spaces but had not received a response.

Colin Eastham, owner of The Parking Agency, the company who supply the tickets said: "Mr Jeffrey owns the car park and he needs to protect it so his customers can park there. The signs are there and there are signs across the front of the shops.

"There is absolutely no way you cannot tell the car park is for the fishing shop and the decorators."

Mr Eastham, whose company collect a £45 administration fee from each ticket, said his company were providing a service and had signed up to the DVLA code of conduct.